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If it's all CICO - why can't you outrun a bad diet?
parfia
Posts: 184 Member
This is purely for debate purposes - if weight loss is purely calories in and calories out, why can't you 'outrun a bad diet' - surely if you run enough to burn off the calories of a bad dietary intake, you can for all intents and purposes outrun a bad diet?
If a person is in a caloric deficit surely they will lose irrespective of what their food intake is.
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If a person is in a caloric deficit surely they will lose irrespective of what their food intake is.
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Replies
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No matter how far or fast you run, if you still eat more calories than you burn, you will put on weight.14
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If you are looking for debate, you may want to post this in the debate section.
I've never really understood that saying personally, but to answer your question I think you'd have to first define what is meant by a bad diet. Are we talking about a diet that creates a caloric excess, or a diet that is nutritionally deficient?0 -
WinoGelato wrote: »If you are looking for debate, you may want to post this in the debate section.
I've never really understood that saying personally, but to answer your question I think you'd have to first define what is meant by a bad diet. Are we talking about a diet that creates a caloric excess, or a diet that is nutritionally deficient?
I didn't realise there was a debate section
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WinoGelato wrote: »If you are looking for debate, you may want to post this in the debate section.
I've never really understood that saying personally, but to answer your question I think you'd have to first define what is meant by a bad diet. Are we talking about a diet that creates a caloric excess, or a diet that is nutritionally deficient?
I meant a diet that is nutritionally bad - if I eat 2,000 calories worth of cheeseburger a day (I don't!) and burn 3,000 calories in a day with exercise - surely that's outrunning a bad diet?2 -
If I am really hungry, I can easily eat 2000 calories worth of pizza in 15-20 minutes. However, I cannot burn 2000 calories in 15-20 minutes.11
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In my experience people say this in reference to fitness goals (see also "abs are made in the kitchen") basically what I take their meaning to be is that 2000 calories of cheeseburger may not help you hit your macros and micros and athletic performance may suffer. Regardless it is an idiom so take it with a grain of salt (another!)
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In theory to a point you could. At my weight I maintain at over 3000 calories,that's a lot of food. If I spent hours in the gym a day I could burn enough to lose some weight. The trouble comes in that I am a binge eater. It is very easy for me to eat thousands and thousands of calories if I am not mindful. And that is the heart of the statement if I personally use it. I am not saying it's impossible, I saying that one: you still have to be somewhat mindful of you intake and two: while it is theoretically possible, it is going to be incredibly inefficient, with no possible way to predict results.1
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You can, it is just difficult. It takes just 10 minutes to eat a 2000 calorie meal and hours of hard labor to burn it off. Idle snacking can lead to a high calorie surplus, during which little, or nothing, is burned off. There will come a point where there is just not enough time to "run off" the excess calories taken in by a "bad diet".
Then again, define "bad diet". One in which one takes in more calories than is burned? That leads to weight gain.4 -
BruinsGal_91 wrote: »No matter how far or fast you run, if you still eat more calories than you burn, you will put on weight.
This is how I've always understood it when I would hear the saying.
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It's another one of these oft-trotted out health and fitness phrases that doesn't really hold any value.WinoGelato wrote: »If you are looking for debate, you may want to post this in the debate section.
I've never really understood that saying personally, but to answer your question I think you'd have to first define what is meant by a bad diet. Are we talking about a diet that creates a caloric excess, or a diet that is nutritionally deficient?
I meant a diet that is nutritionally bad - if I eat 2,000 calories worth of cheeseburger a day (I don't!) and burn 3,000 calories in a day with exercise - surely that's outrunning a bad diet?
That's outrunning the calorie element of your dietary intake.
As running doesn't provide any dietary nutrients, you aren't outrunning the nutritional aspect.1 -
I can now lose weight eating the same number of average calories daily that caused me to gain in the first place, due to my activity level.
I didn't really have a "bad diet". I was eating on average about 400-700 calories more than I was burning daily during a challenging time in my life because I stopped training for endurance events (i.e. 200 mile bicycle races, marathons etc.)
There is a grain of truth to the statement for someone who is just beginning a diet and exercise program. For someone just starting out, trying to create a deficit primarily by exercise is hard. To be safe and healthy, you need to ramp up exercise as you become more fit. If someone were to go from sedentary, for example, to running 1:30 each day cold, there would be a huge risk of injury or other problems.
Early on as I was losing the weight I gained, it was primarily about diet. I was 75 pounds heavier than my competition weight, and exercise came hard at first. About halfway through, it was more about the calories burned.1 -
I think that you CAN outrun a bad (highly caloric is what I think is meant by the expression) diet--meaning it is theoretically possible--but for most people, it would mean an activity level that is unrealistic. And so one cannot outrun a bad diet, practically speaking. Your average Joe or Jane could not or would not put in the amount of activity it would take to override, say, a large bag of Doritos. Or carton of ice cream. Or whatever.4
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The statement is said because it's easy to eat 1000 calories of calorie dense food. It's not easy to burn 1000 calories "outrunning" your diet. It's a saying, not a scientific certainty. There really is nothing to debate.
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@richln But if that pizza is all you have in a day and you burn that over the day - surely you would still lose ?
You can outrun it. Most military bases feed soldiers exactly this type of heavy food day in day out, three times a day and the majority outrun it. But you're talking 6 hours a day walking everywhere, 1-2 hours PT doing all sorts and then non sedentary activity for the balance - this is also ignoring the full days you spend on exercise. Pretty hard to mimic 10 hours of continuous light-heavy effort with the majority of full time jobs.
As they get more senior and have to do less physical work, the ones who are not nutritionally aware tend to get fatter.1 -
This is purely for debate purposes - if weight loss is purely calories in and calories out, why can't you 'outrun a bad diet' - surely if you run enough to burn off the calories of a bad dietary intake, you can for all intents and purposes outrun a bad diet?
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Happily ... you can!
I remained very slender for years because I was cycling 10,000 km/year + walking lots + cross country skiing and snowshoeing + lifting weights + generally being as active as I could.
Most of the year, I had trouble eating enough to maintain my weight, so during the winter when my cycling slowed a little, I would eat quite a lot and deliberately gain some weight. Come spring, I'd start losing and by autumn, I was usually underweight.
For me, 5000 calories in a 24 hour period was all I could manage ... couldn't stuff more in. And on days when I was cycling 24 hours (yes, I'm an ultra-distance cyclists ... 24 hour time trials, randonneuring, and all that), I needed every one of those 5000 calories.
I remember wandering through grocery stores looking for the smallest but highest calorie foods because I just got so sick of eating. I chuckle to think of it now, but I recall standing there looking at the calorie count for various things when another customer spoke up and said, "They're all so high in calories", and she sighed. I shook my head and said, "Not high enough". She walked away quickly.
Anyway, yes ... if you exercise and burn more than you consume, you can for all intents and purposes outrun a bad diet. However, you do have to exercise a lot ... and you can't go completely crazy with the eating.
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It's another one of these oft-trotted out health and fitness phrases that doesn't really hold any value.WinoGelato wrote: »If you are looking for debate, you may want to post this in the debate section.
I've never really understood that saying personally, but to answer your question I think you'd have to first define what is meant by a bad diet. Are we talking about a diet that creates a caloric excess, or a diet that is nutritionally deficient?
I meant a diet that is nutritionally bad - if I eat 2,000 calories worth of cheeseburger a day (I don't!) and burn 3,000 calories in a day with exercise - surely that's outrunning a bad diet?
That's outrunning the calorie element of your dietary intake.
As running doesn't provide any dietary nutrients, you aren't outrunning the nutritional aspect.
But if a calorie is a calorie - why does it matter where it comes from?1 -
WinoGelato wrote: »If you are looking for debate, you may want to post this in the debate section.
I've never really understood that saying personally, but to answer your question I think you'd have to first define what is meant by a bad diet. Are we talking about a diet that creates a caloric excess, or a diet that is nutritionally deficient?
I meant a diet that is nutritionally bad - if I eat 2,000 calories worth of cheeseburger a day (I don't!) and burn 3,000 calories in a day with exercise - surely that's outrunning a bad diet?
You're conflating calorie deficit and nutritionally deficient. Losing weight is a numbers game. If you eat less than you burn, you will lose weight, whether it be a nutritionally balanced diet, a diet made up of nothing but cheeseburgers, etc. The majority of the calories we burn in a day come from just being alive and our every day activity (NEAT). Add in any exercise and you have your TDEE, so if you eat less than that you would lose weight.
That still hasn't even touched on nutrition. You can lose weight and not be obtaining a good balance of macro and micro nutrients. I would still call that a bad diet overall, but a diet filled with cheeseburgers could still achieve a lot of those nutritional goals, depending on what you put on the burger!1 -
WinoGelato wrote: »If you are looking for debate, you may want to post this in the debate section.
I've never really understood that saying personally, but to answer your question I think you'd have to first define what is meant by a bad diet. Are we talking about a diet that creates a caloric excess, or a diet that is nutritionally deficient?
I meant a diet that is nutritionally bad - if I eat 2,000 calories worth of cheeseburger a day (I don't!) and burn 3,000 calories in a day with exercise - surely that's outrunning a bad diet?
That is not what is meant by the phrase. There is nothing nutritionally wrong with eating a cheeseburger or pizza.
A "bad" diet in this case just means you are eating more calories than you burn. It does not matter if those calories are in cheeseburgers or brussel sprouts.
Anyway, running makes you super hungry and it is commen for people (women in particular) to gain weight when they start training for marathons. It's really easy to eat more calories than you actually burn.
I'm currently tapering for an upcoming half, but I had to watch my calorie intake carefully over the last three months to ensure I didn't gain weight. My max number of weekly miles peaked at 55 and I have been super hungry. If I didn't carefully monitor myself, I would have easily gained weight.
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It's another one of these oft-trotted out health and fitness phrases that doesn't really hold any value.WinoGelato wrote: »If you are looking for debate, you may want to post this in the debate section.
I've never really understood that saying personally, but to answer your question I think you'd have to first define what is meant by a bad diet. Are we talking about a diet that creates a caloric excess, or a diet that is nutritionally deficient?
I meant a diet that is nutritionally bad - if I eat 2,000 calories worth of cheeseburger a day (I don't!) and burn 3,000 calories in a day with exercise - surely that's outrunning a bad diet?
That's outrunning the calorie element of your dietary intake.
As running doesn't provide any dietary nutrients, you aren't outrunning the nutritional aspect.
But if a calorie is a calorie - why does it matter where it comes from?
It doesn't. That's a different, and often discussed concept as well. A calorie is a unit of energy and doesn't matter whether it comes from cheeseburgers or broccoli.
That's not what the question you posed is addressing though.
Search "is a calorie a calorie" and I guarantee you'll find plenty of prior threads discussing/debating this.2
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